


practice makes perfect

by intrajanelle



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Fluff, Lots of kissing, M/M, Modern AU, allusions to masturbation, lots of fluff like a shitload of fluff, swearing via jean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 07:20:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1217428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrajanelle/pseuds/intrajanelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Jean and Marco continue to believe their feelings for each other are unrequited even while they’re literally sucking each other’s faces off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	practice makes perfect

**Author's Note:**

> There's just copious amounts of fluff here, and lots of kissing, and one allusion to masturbation, no one actually has sex, I am sorry for this if you were expecting it with the rating. I just wanted to be safe.
> 
> This is my first, maybe last, jeanmarco fic but I love them and I hope I did them justice.
> 
> Also, this fic was heavily inspired by this beautiful Reigisa fic: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1154583 after reading which I decided that every otp deserves at least one silly practice kissing fic. So I tried that out. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy this!

Jean doesn't consider himself stupid. He's just dense when it concerns his feelings. That's why it takes him awhile to realize he's in love his best friend—too long—four years to be precise. 

They’re sixteen when one day, Jean says something that wasn't even very funny, looks over at Marco in time to witness the smile crawling across the boys freckled cheeks and feels an overwhelming surge of affection. Perched on a mound of pillows on the far end of Marco’s bed, Jean feels his fingers twitch as if they want to do something stupid like touch his best friend. And he’s touched Marco before, patted his back, ruffled his hair, grabbed his elbow to lead him across the quad, but now he wants to feel what Marco’s skin feels like under his graphic tee and Jean, fairly sure that that’s not normal, platonic behavior, sits on his hands and tries to will his face not to flush.

He thinks, “I’m doomed,” just in time to watch Marco launch to his feet to retrieve snacks from the kitchen.

“Do you want something?” Marco asks, watching Jean from the door. When Jean doesn’t automatically reply Marco calls his name and waves a hand in Jean’s direction, trying to get his attention.

But Jean is too busy trying to reassure himself that the love he’s feeling for Marco is platonic to respond.

“Jean?” Marco repeats for the dozenth time.

This time Jean looks up slowly, realizes his eyes are trailing along Marco’s long legs and the curve of his ass, and manages to launch himself face-first into Marco’s pillows before Marco can see that he’s red all the way down to his collarbone.

“I’ll get you some water,” Marco says, voice muffled by the pillows.

“I’m so fucking doomed,” Jean whispers.

He isn’t exactly doomed. 

Jean adjusts. 

It takes exactly four months to train himself not to freak the fuck out every time Marco so much as punches his shoulder, to not reach for the hem of Marco’s shirt unconsciously when he wants to get the boy’s attention, to not breathe in Marco’s shampoo when his friend pulls him into a one-armed bro-hug when they’re saying goodbye.

He tries not to think about how little they touch anymore, or the way Marco’s eyebrows crinkle when Jean keeps exactly a foot between them while they walk side-by-side, or the stiff quiet that pervades the room almost every time they’re alone these days. And he can't close this fissure that's growing wider and wider between him and his best friend because in order to do that he would end up caving and smooshing their lips together like he’s wanted to do for almost 131 days. And if he did that he’d lose Marco and he can’t afford to lose this friendship just because he can’t control his raging hormones.

So he adjusts and keeps his distance from Marco, is a little quieter sometimes when he just doesn't know what to say anymore without shouting "I like you" right in Marco's ear, and he learns to expect these things that go unsaid between them to hang in the air, a heavy, painfully noticeable presence while they’re playing videogames or studying or screwing around after school. 

He isn’t as subtle as he thinks he is about the whole thing, however. As can be seen when Armin corners him one day between Biology and Gym—and seeing as Mr. Levi is their gym teacher it must be serious if Armin is willing to risk being late—and asks what’s going on between him and Marco. Jean brushes him off, makes it to gym just on time and isn’t subjected to cleaning the locker rooms with the other late students—namely Eren.

It gets worse though. Bertolt and Reiner mention it while they're standing in line for lunch one day, well, Reiner does most of the talking, Bertolt just stands, tall and nervous and sweaty, nodding along with everything Reiner says. Jean is gruff with them, if gruff can be called grunting, shoving his lunch money at the cashier and dashing across the quad. 

Two hours later, when the final bell rings, Annie tells him to sort things out with Marco and fixes him with the most intimidating stare Jean has ever seen—and he’s seen Mikasa after Eren got his face punched in by some stupid bullies who soon learned you just do not mess with Mikasa’s brother.

That day after school he goes over Marco’s house as per usual, lounges on his best friends many pillows and proceeds to trip over his tongue in more ways than one.

The second way is when he leans over Marco’s army print bedspread to kiss him on the mouth. 

But the first way is when he asks Marco if he has someone he likes.

He can’t be at fault for asking, not really. The subject has been on his mind all day, what with all of their friends demanding he patch up the unspoken tears in their relationship, and it’s a bit of a casual question, something friends ask each other all the time. Jean frantically tries to convince himself of this as he watches Marco’s shoulders stiffen from where his friend is on the other side of the room, hunched over his desk.

Marco turns to look at him slowly, licking his lips.

“Yeah,” he says.

Jean sits up, almost too quickly, textbooks he hadn’t actually been reading sliding to the floor. 

“Who is it?” Jean demands, not caring if he sounds anxious. He knows he can’t have Marco, but he’s not even a tiny bit comfortable with the idea of someone else having him either. Some stranger walking home with his best friend, brushing shoulders, clasping hands, laughing and eating with him? No. Jean doesn’t want that. 

“I—um—I don’t think—”

“C’mon Marco,” Jean says, forcing a smile on, ignoring the way his knuckles are turning white where they’re clenched around one of Marco’s pillows. “You can tell me. I won’t make fun of you no matter who it is, swear.”

Marco makes his way over to the bed and sits heavily beside Jean.

“I still don’t think I can tell you,” Marco says, voice soft, hands folded in his lap.

They sit like that for a few minutes. The silence nicer than it’s been in awhile. Jean tries not to think about how close they’re sitting, his knee brushing Marco’s hip, closer than they’ve been in months. 

He’s watching the way Marco’s chewing his bottom lip when the thought occurs to him, and it’s a stupid, silly, really dumb idea, that he shouldn’t say out loud, so of course it spills from his lips before he can spare it a second thought.

“What about kissing?” Jean asks. 

Marco almost reels, almost, because he actually just spins to face Jean without breaking the skin contact he has going on with Jean’s bony knee. “What _about_ kissing?” he asks.

“Well, hear me out,” Jean says, buying himself some time. He actually has no idea where this is going, but Marco hasn’t left yet and he’s taking that as a good sign. “I’m pretty sure you haven’t kissed anyone—wait, have you been holding out?”

Marco shakes his head, his cheeks four different shades of embarrassed.

Jean lets out a sigh he hadn’t known he’d been suppressing. “And I haven’t kissed anyone either. So, like, what if the perfect moment comes around with the people we like, for a kiss, and we have no idea what to do?”

Marco’s eyebrows are wrinkled and he’s staring at Jean’s hands. “You—do you have someone you like?”

“Well, yeah,” Jean says, brushing past the question before Marco can dwell on it. “I propose we practice.”

“Practice.” Marco repeats. “With who?”

“With each other of course!” Jean says, and now he’s flushed too, and this whole idea might be crumbling around him because Marco isn’t saying yes. 

Marco is beat red and his hands are shaking but he isn’t saying yes and Jean can hear his heart thumping in his chest so loud he’s sure Marco can hear it too.

But then before Jean can stand and brush the entire thing off as a joke, with a, “jeez Marco I was just kidding, let’s play some Portal,” and a friendly, non-sexual, platonic slap on the back, Marco nods and says, “Okay.”

“Okay?” Jean says, and he’s not flushed now, now all the blood in his body is rushing to his feet and he feels like he might be sick. He’s just successfully tricked his best friend, who he’s secretly in love with, into kissing practice and he feels one part shame one part giddy and one part dead scared.

“Okay,” Marco says again, leaning a little closer to him and closing his eyes. He doesn’t purse his lips, just leaves them in a loose line, soft and pink and vulnerable, ready for Jean to make a move.

Jean hesitates for the briefest of moments—so brief that it feels like years in his mind as he goes over every single kiss he’s ever seen, in movies, TV shows, even porn. He’s not sure where to start, not even sure how to tilt his head. He just counts Marco’s freckles, like sheep, to calm himself, watches the way Marco’s eyebrows furrow in concentration and leans forward and—smacks their noses together.

He’s embarrassed, really truly embarrassed, red all the way to the roots of his undercut, but Marco just laughs and tilts his head and then their lips are touching, soft and unmoving but touching, the barest of pressure. And Jean had noticed that Marco’s lips were soft but goddamn, this is a whole new level of soft.

When they part, finally, breathless from doing nothing but holding their mouths together, Jean says, “Can we—”

And Marco says, “Yes,” without further prompting and leans in for kiss number two and three and four. Their lips smack, wet and hot, and Jean’s hands are on Marco’s shoulders and Marco’s are in his hair, thumbs brushing over his earlobes, and all Jean can hear is white noise, roaring, making everything but their kisses meaningless.

When a door on the first floor slams open they jump apart. Downstairs the rest of the Bodt family is arriving, calling up to them with promises of pizza, but Jean has never been less hungry in his entire life. He just wants Marco in his lap, kissing him, right now. But Marco is already standing, rubbing the slick shine from his lips with the back of his hand and smiling at Jean like he hasn’t a care in the world.

“Dinner?” he asks, gesturing to the door. 

Jean nods and follows him downstairs before he can think too much about what’s happening.

With cross country practice, exams and general tomfoolery in the form of their stupid friends, it’s another few days before they get another chance to practice. Five days to be exact, Jean’s counted. And when they’re sitting, in Jean’s room this time, his parents out at some fancy dinner party, nothing but the two of them, a PS2 and a box of half pepperoni/half cheese pizza—just the way Marco likes it—Jean isn’t sure how to ask to kiss his best friend again without making himself sound weird, or desperate, or in love.

Luckily, Marco takes that part of the arrangement into his own hands by setting his paper plate down on the carpet, wiping his fingers on a napkin and asking Jean without much fuss at all if he wants to continue practicing.

Jean says yes perhaps a bit too quickly but before he can worry about that Marco is reaching across the space between them and sucking Jean’s lower lip into his mouth and Jean’s entire brain turns to cotton.

This time when they separate its after Marco’s nibbled and licked and sucked at Jean’s lips like it’s a particularly rousing exam he’s been studying for.

“Well?” Marco asks, cheeks flushed.

Jean can only stare at him and then, as he’s leaning forward for more, says, “Show me how you did that.”

Marco is only too happy to oblige and by the end of it Marco is halfway in Jean’s lap, lips bruised and gasping and Jean is not ashamed to say the image goes straight to his groin. Its probably a good thing Marco has to leave right then and there, some chore he forgot he had to do on the way home, and dashes from Jean’s room like something’s chasing him, because Jean spends the next fifteen minutes in the bathroom, comes with Marco’s name on his lips and spends the rest of the night googling the perfect kissing technique.

From then on its becomes almost routine. Whenever they’re over each other’s houses, locked away in their bedrooms, they’ll finish their homework, eat and relax, and then, before its time to go home for the night, they’ll make out.

They get good at it. The time after Jean spends a night researching techniques, he licks his way inside Marco’s mouth, curls their tongues together, swallows Marco’s moans. Marco’s knees go weak and he fists his hands in Jean’s collar and tells him to do it again. 

Whenever their teeth clack or their noses bump or one particular smack of lips leaves spit dribbling down their chins, Marco just laughs and pulls Jean closer, before he can get embarrassed, because its always Jean that’s embarrassed, like this wasn’t his idea in the first place.

It’s two weeks later, lying underneath Marco, lazily kissing like they’ve been doing this for ages, that Jean pulls away.

Marco’s eyes are lidded, pupils blown, cheeks flushed. He’s looking at Jean like he’s hungry and Jean suddenly wonders who his best friend is pretending he’s kissing right now. Which girl he’s imagining in Jean’s place. Whose lips he’s nibbling at like they’re the goddamn prize at the bottom of a cereal box. And in a sudden, violent, change of heart, Jean can’t do this anymore.

“Is this enough practice?” Jean says, drying his lips on his shirtsleeve.

Marco’s eyes remain dark, his arms still framing Jean’s head, until the words sink in and then its like they were never kissing at all. Marco pushes himself away from Jean, halfway across the bed, hands trembling as he pulls on his socks.

“I mean—I just—this was only supposed to be until we got good,” Jean says, and then flushes. “You’ve gotten real good.”

“Y-Yeah,” Marco says, “right, I have chores.”

“Marco,” Jean says, stopping his friend just as he’s stepping out Jean’s bedroom door. Jean doesn’t know why, maybe it’s the taut set of Marco’s shoulders or the way his friends fingers are drumming his sides, but something doesn’t feel right, and he can’t let him go without knowing who it is Marco’s been seeing in his place all this time. “Who is it?”

“Who’s who?”

“Your crush,” Jean says, “I mean, since I helped you practice, I at least got a right to know, y’know?”

Marco stares at him for a full minute, like he doesn’t even recognize him, and then shrugs. “You don’t know them.”

The next day at school is like having each of his limbs slowly torn from their sockets—torture, plain, simple, torture. It starts with Marco avoiding him and ends quite the same, but the middle is interspersed with his friends approaching him one-by-one to inform him of just how big of an idiot he is. Before gym class even Eren, who normally wouldn’t be averse to having a good fight over the subject, just shakes his head when Jean asks what has all their panties in a twist and leaves Jean alone in the locker room.

Jean’s five minutes late for gym, has to clean the toilets under Mr. Levi's supervision as punishment and therefore misses lunch with Marco. At the end of the day when he waits for Marco to walk home with him he has to find out from Ymir that Marco booked it the second the last bell rang and is probably halfway home already.

Even Ymir looks unhappy with him, not that that’s abnormal, but usually Krista’s presence calms her. Today, even with her arm around the small blonde’s shoulders she seems peeved, and Krista can only offer a concerned look before she’s dragged away by her girlfriend.

It goes on like this for the rest of the week. By the end of it all Jean is ten times grumpier than normal and added to his usual levels of grumpy, that’s a pretty friggin bad mood, which is why, Friday morning, he leaves for school at six a.m. and ambushes Marco at his locker before any combination of their friends or Marco’s evading tactics can prevent him from having this conversation.

“We need to talk,” Jean says, coming up behind Marco at 6:35 while Marco’s opening the lock on his locker.

Marco jumps and spins to face him, cheeks already half-red. 

“Jean, what are you—”

“We need. To talk.” Jean demands, fisting a hand in Marco’s sweater. “My house, after school, wait for me here.”

Before Marco can protest or come up with an excuse and use his huge brown eyes and freckles to convince Jean he really just can’t make it, Jean books it to his first class and proceeds to sleep through his first two periods, only waking to zombie shuffle from classroom to classroom.

At lunch Sasha and Connie do their best to eat all of his food when it becomes clear that the last thing on his mind is eating, and Jean doesn’t even try to stop them. Just watches Marco chat with Armin and Annie on the other end of the quad, watches the way Marco throws his head back to laugh at something Armin’s said and tries not to feel like trash for not having made Marco laugh like that in a long time.

By the time the day ends Jean is half-convinced he dreamed his conversation with Marco that morning and is surprised to find his friend sitting on the floor outside his locker once he’s finished class.

“Ready to go?” Marco says, looking a little green.

“Yeah, you?” Jean asks.

Marco says yes but Jean hasn’t been his best friend for four years to not recognize when he’s lying.

Jean’s house is empty when they get there. Jean’s parents are at some benefit to save wild horses or some shit, Jean really doesn’t care, only checks to make sure they left him take-out money, which they did, and proceeds to order him and Marco enough pizza, chicken wings and French fries to feed a small squad of soldiers.

They wait for the pizza in the living room. Jean sets up his PS2 to his family’s 72-inch plasma TV, his back to Marco as he hooks up wires here and there, using the space to try and sort out what he’s going to say first. By the time he finally turns around Marco is sitting on the floor against the couch, he has his head in his hands and his shoulders are shaking.

“Marco?” Jean hisses, sliding beside his friend and pulling his hands away from his face. “Hey, what’s wrong? You okay?”

“No,” Marco says, “no I’m not fucking okay.”

Jean’s mouth goes dry. His hands tighten around Marco’s wrists. He wonders if its wrong to think Marco swearing is the sexiest thing he’s ever heard.

“What’s wrong?” Jean repeats, thinking that Marco not pushing him away must be a good sign.

Marco stares at the floor, angry tears pooling in his eyes, his lips set in a tight line. 

Jean’s seen Marco angry, but never at him, at least he assumes that Marco is mad at him, who else could he be mad at? There’s no one else here. That is, until Marco begins his explanation with, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry,” Jean says, at a loss.

“Who do you like Jean?” Marco asks. As he looks up at Jean’s eyes the tears spill over and draw lines between his freckles like they’re playing connect-the-dots.

Jean stares.

“Did you hear me? Who do you like?” Marco asks, pulling away from Jean’s hands and leaning against the couch.

“What’s this about?” Jean manages to croak.

He briefly wonders if Marco’s caught on to him, if this is it, the last time he’ll be able to spend time with his best friend without Marco being awkward and forced and not-into-him-like-that. 

“It’s about me lying to you,” Marco says. “And I’m sorry, for the lying, and for kissing—” he pauses to look right at Jean, making sure their eyes are catching, “I like you.”

Jean’s brain may or may not be spontaneously combusting, he can’t be sure because all he can process is that _Marco likes him_ and _this is okay_ and _the world is spinning on its axis and everything it’s not a fucking wet dream_.

“You don’t have to say anything. I took advantage of you when you just wanted to practice for—you know, I mean—I know you like someone else,” Marco says, trying to stand, “I’ll go.”

Jean can’t say anything but he’s cognizant enough to place his hands on Marco’s shoulders and hold him down. Then he’s hefting a leg over Marco’s waist and straddling him and pushing their mouths together like they were never apart.

Marco isn’t object to kissing, he caves quite quickly, almost as soon as Jean’s tongue flicks at his lips he open his mouth, takes Jean in, places a firm hand on the small of Jean’s back. But Marco doesn’t have the whole story yet, whereas Jean does, so after a few moments he leans away, gives Jean a pinched look.

“I thought I was using _you_ ,” Jean says, and then, face suddenly flushed, he tucks his head in the crook of Marco’s neck and whispers, “the one I like is you.”

Marco leans back and sighs, says, “What’s that? I couldn’t hear you Jean.”

Jean repeats himself but Marco still can’t hear him, supposedly, so Jean leans back to face him, face redder than it’s ever been in his entire life, and shouts, “I love you, you asshole.”

Marco has the decency to look embarrassed and then, serious, he leans his forehead against Jean’s and says, soft, “I love you too.”

And that’s that. All their feelings are out on the table. Their relationship is hereby sorted out, in Jean’s mind, and he doesn’t feel like talking about their feelings anymore or spewing more sappy crap, he just wants to be making out with Marco, so he catches Marco’s bottom lips in his teeth and then, using his leverage, tilts Marco’s lips upward and kisses him until they’re panting and all hands, because now that that’s allowed Jean isn't holding back. Jean soon has his fingers splayed across Marco’s shoulder blades and is so caught up thrusting his tongue deeper and deeper into Marco’s mouth that he doesn’t realize Marco’s hands are teasing themselves lower and lower until they’re halfway inside his boxers.

Jean squeaks, the doorbell rings and both of them spring apart like they’ve just been caught doing something far worse than making out on the floor.

They’re quiet, catching their breath, staring at each other, and then the doorbell rings again, and again, impatiently.

“Pizza.” Jean croaks, pulling himself to his feet, grabbing the money from the counter.

He pauses in the door of the living room, staring at Marco before he tries to walk halfway across his house to answer the goddamn door. He wants to make sure Marco will still be there when he gets back without asking him to stay, he doesn’t want to sound like a corny asshole but he also doesn’t want this to be a dream. God only knows how many dreams he’s had of him and Marco together like this.

“Go get the pizza, Jean,” Marco says, his smile somehow innocent and wicked at the same exact time. “Then we can finish what we started.”

Jean has never paid for pizza faster in his entire fucking life.


End file.
